That means there is a difference of five years between the brothers, which aligns with the general consensus that Niles was most likely born around 1957 and Frasier was born in 1952. In other words, Niles is about 36 at the beginning of Frasier.
Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) is forty-one in season one, Niles (David Hyde Pierce) is thirty-eight in season three, Roz (Peri Gilpin) is thirty-eight in season ten, and Martin (John Mahoney) is sixty-five in season five.
Niles is the younger brother of Frasier Crane (played by Kelsey Grammer).
Born in Seattle, Washington, in 1957, to Hester Crane, a psychiatrist, and Martin Crane, a police detective. Although the exact date of Niles' birth is never revealed, he's roughly two years younger than Frasier.
Daphne is the only main character whose age is never disclosed (though her birthstone is revealed to be sapphire in Roz and the Schnoz). Frasier is forty-one in season one, Niles is thirty-eight in season three, Roz is thirty-eight in season ten, and Martin is sixty-five in season five. Daphne gets engaged four times.
Returning from the spa, however, Daphne reveals that her therapist, Gloria, informed her that her recent weight gain stemmed from her own insecurity about her relationship with Niles.
Daphne Sported An Actual Baby Bump
So much so that she put on weight and even sported a bulging tummy for the majority of Season 8. In real life, Jane Leeves was pregnant at the time, and Daphne getting fat was written into the show to explain her baby bump.
According to Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce decided not to return as Niles on Paramount+'s revival of Frasier because he didn't want to repeat his performance of the character.
The next highest paid cast member, David Hyde Pierce, who portrayed Frasier's younger brother Niles, was reportedly earning around $750,000 an episode for the 10th season and $1 million an episode for the 11th.
Now, Grammer has said in a new interview that Niles will not be in the series. “David basically decided he wasn't really interested in repeating the performance of Niles,” Grammer told People .
The cast of Frasier were notably close. Grammer calls Pierce the brother he never had. Along with the late John Mahoney, who played their dad, Martin, Pierce is godfather to Leeves's son. “David is a very easy person to love,” emails Leeves.
“He made a fair amount of money in Boston as a private therapist and he lectured and he wrote articles and he just invested very well. And at one point somebody said, 'He's from Seattle, maybe he got in on the ground floor of Microsoft. ' Little dividends arrived to augment what he was making in the station.”
Maris was famously kept offscreen for the entire run of Frasier - but she technically still "appeared" on the show twice. Maris was the wife of Niles Crane (David Hyde Pierce), but despite the Crane men making jokes about her aloof nature and appearance, the show also made it clear that Niles genuinely loved her too.
Jane Leeves (Daphne Moon)
She was 32 when Frasier first aired, and up until then had only appeared in a few small television series.
Maris Crane is Niles Crane's wife for much of the series, though she is never fully seen onscreen (much like Norm Peterson's wife, Vera, on Cheers). She is the most notable of the show's never-seen characters, and often the subject of many jokes. Her family is not revealed on the series.
Niles was never mentioned, simply because he literally didn't exist, as just as part of Frasier's backstory on Cheers. He also didn't exist for Frasier until a casting director noticed David Hyde Pierce's resemblance to Kelsey Grammer.
The Crane family keeps a tense vigil while Niles has open-heart surgery, each remembering various experiences they've had in hospitals.
While Grammer does not have a history of heart trouble, he has had well-chronicled problems with drug and alcohol addiction.
Frasier's offscreen investments, his negotiated radio salary, and savings from high psychiatrist salary were lucrative enough to sustain himself, his costly tastes, and responsibilities.
Actor John Lithgow turned down the role of TV favo... watched it.
Kelsey Grammer has only 2 minutes and 46 seconds of screen time in this episode, making it the only time he appears in the form of a cameo, as he was being treated for his addiction problems. As result, it was re-written and entirely centered around Niles (David Hyde Pierce).
She has a brief fling with a co-worker, Bob "Bulldog" Briscoe (much to her later chagrin). Early in the fifth season, Roz discovers that she is pregnant with the child of a 20-year-old college student with whom she had a brief fling.
Jane Leeves' pregnancy
The baby that Niles and Daphne have at the end of the show is not a result of a real life pregnancy of Jane Leeves, the actress who plays Daphne. However, she was pregnant earlier in the show. In season 8 the actress got pregnant and it was simply written into the show as a weight gain.
Jane Leeves was pregnant twice during Frasier. While her second pregnancy was written into the final season, her first wasn't and the writers gave Daphne a storyline where she gains weight instead.
Daphne only appears in season 2 when the story needs her perspective — either as Anthony's brother or a woman who has gone through London's courtship season before. Because those moments come at Aubrey Hall, that's why she's on-screen primarily in the middle part of the season.